Jesus Is an Anarchist

James Redford

11.
Jesus Supported the Collecting of Interest (Usury)

One of the Socialists'
great bugbears has been the institution of usury, or otherwise the
collecting of interest. Yet in the only instance in which Jesus commented
upon this He was clearly in favor of the concept, as is given in His
Parable of the Talents, in which a man traveling to a far-away country
leaves his three servants with some talents to make use of in the best way
they see fit while he is away – the first two servants invest the talents
and receive more talents from their initial investment, and this makes the
lord of the estate happy to hear this upon his return; but here is what
Jesus says of the third servant:

Matthew 25:24-27:
"Then he who had received the one talent came and said, 'Lord, I knew you
to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you
have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in
the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.' But his lord answered and
said to him, 'You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I
have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to
have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have
received back my own with interest." (See also Luke 19:21-23.)

Now obviously this
parable is a lesson on how Christians should be ever vigilant in
converting people to salvation in Christ, in that we should not keep the
Gospel of Christ to ourselves but always seek to increase the number of
Christians in the world.

But even so, it
nevertheless demonstrates that Jesus was hardly hostile to the concept of
the collecting of interest, considering that this was his only commentary
given on the subject.

But moreover, it ties
in quite appropriately with Jesus's attitude toward the absolute
lawfulness of an individual doing what they wish with their own property –
including freely contracting thereof – as told by Jesus in his Parable of
the Workers in the Vineyard as recorded in Matthew 20:1-16.